


Newcastle's Child

by Budinca



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-16
Updated: 2011-08-16
Packaged: 2018-03-10 14:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3294320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Budinca/pseuds/Budinca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day when the glovemaker's daughter in Newcastle met the Raven King.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Newcastle's Child

**Author's Note:**

> In the late seventeenth century there was a glovemaker in the King's city of Newcastle who had a daughter -a bold little thing. One day this child, whom everyone supposed to be playing in some corner of her father's house, was missed. Her mother and father and brothers searched for her. The neighbours searched, but she was nowhere to be found. Then in the late afternoon they looked up and saw her coming down the muddy, cobbled hill. Some of them thought for a moment that they saw someone beside her in the dark winter street, but she came on alone. She was quite unharmed and her story, when they had pieced it together, was this: [...] - _Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell_, footnote 1, page 418

It seemed like, just when England was beginning to feel complete again, it was falling to pieces more than ever. Less than a century before, the British Isles had been united under the same king.  Jacob I, in the eyes of the poor, especially to those in north, looked like an attempt to recall the past. For, if a single man was able to unite Scotland with England, then he ought to be showed almost as much respect as their _true_ king.

They didn’t have the time to get used to the feeling, however, for as Jacob’s successor began to reign, conflicts seemed to arise one after the other at his court. It was much harder to rule over two kingdoms than some thought. Judging from this, even the time’s historians ought to acknowledge John Uskglass’ impressive talent, as he had been the king of three countries at the same time.  Furthermore, some considered quite obvious the fact that the old royalty didn’t approve with this union. And, after many other conflicts and a civil war, the other Englishmen realized too that they had put their faith in those new men of power way too soon. England was not yet ready to be ruled by reason.

◊

In the old city of Newcastle, the people were just getting used to the silent, peaceful years, as they were never too much affected by the country’s affairs. Since the otherwise sad day when their king had disappeared, the capital had rather turned into, one might say, a normal English town.

It was winter. Either because the season was particularly afraid of the plains of Northern England, since its quarrel with the Raven King, when it was banished for four years and summer took its place, or because of the blessings that the same man poured over the city, the winters in Newcastle were especially mild.

Hargreaves, the town’s glovemaker, didn’t have much to gain from this. For all that, he couldn’t give up his job either, judging by the fact that he had children and a wife to feed and take care of and, anyhow, he wasn’t so good at doing anything else.

While her brothers worked in town, Isabel, the glovemaker’s youngest daughter, usually stayed inside the house with her father, playing any sort of game she could think of. She was a very joyful child, bold and curious, always up to something, so her parents noticed rather quickly when she wasn’t in the house anymore.

◊

A city can be a very queer thing in a child’s eyes. After passing just a few streets from her house, young Isabel was already overwhelmed by the market and by the crowd. A child’s eye is created to see completely other things. Maybe this was why, just a little while later, Isabel found the one thing she loved most in the whole world: a secret. There it was, where yesterday had lain a few boxes of spoilt apples, a road. Unlike the others in her town, covered with melted ice and mud, this was a wide, quite clean, well-paved street and it led to no place that she knew.

She followed it straight away, going up, up, higher than it looked from afar, higher than any hill around the town. When the road stopped, she was in front of a great house, almost a mansion. The gate was open, so the glovemaker’s daughter stepped forward, trying to contain as many details of the stone walls as she could. Probably another one would have felt the eerie, otherworldly air of the place and left. At the same time, nothing could tell that the girl didn’t feel it too. Despite everything, she went in.

◊

Perhaps the only difference between normal parents and him was that he could never see his children grow up. His children were without age, he could hardly see them playing the games he laid in front of them and now more and more of them were starting to forget who their real father was.

The years he spent away from England certainly changed his view of its inhabitants. While, when he ruled over them, they were only his loyal (or not) servants, very briefly mentioned as something else, now it seemed that he could care and even bear some sort of foreign feeling of love.

As he turned his face from the ice-blue sky at his left, John Uskglass moved his gaze to the one at his right, to Newcastle. Faerie tried to change him back, which could be seen just like scratches along his face. But his skin was perfect; pale, young, noble. Maybe his father really was that aristocrat he once mentioned.

Unlike in the _Other lands_ , his long, black hair was now ragged, like a nest, as if built from feathers, as if birds dashed through it. And there was dew in it, like a veil or a silver crown. The road had been rough, his clothes were in pieces. A far cry from the king whom he’d once portrayed, at first glance. But his gaze was cold and firm, seeing over his city, his hills and his forests. Over the river, over the wind, over the sky, until it could reach England’s heart. And it would beat once more through all its veins.

Like a memory or not at all, he brought himself a silver dish, maybe just to remember him of the past times. He saw the girl just as she reached out of her father’s door. He decided to open a road for her, so that she could come, if she could feel.

The faint smile on his lips moved across the walls and the whole house formed itself again at her touch. Yes, it was true, she did not feel like a servant, but much more like a child. They could all be like this. Nevertheless, a king’s home had to be presentable. With a movement of his fingers, the shutters from the window at his back were silenced. It was just another human village, the place where the road stopped again. But it looked as if the spell not only affected that particular area. The whole house became eerily silent.

With what was almost a dramatic sigh, John Uskglass shoved his black cloak and sat down on the floor. The dish was in front of him, but his gaze was resting on the wooden door before him. He was watching her, as she entered the first room and ancient summer shadows ran over her. The magician thought that she might have liked that; that particular scent of flowers should have been new to her. Then she entered the second, where she looked at the _real_ door without seeing it, that magnificent fairy mirror. The song of the birds of four hundred years ago was falling into her. The movement was almost gracious. A smile formed on the king’s lips as he saw that she couldn’t understand the river welcoming her and then he let her follow the stairs. Yes, that was right, every child of England was a child of his. They only needed a little help in order to find him.

The Raven King was preparing to give her the old greeting which he used back in his days. It was maybe just a little too much, but it brought back memories. The little girl screamed in the sea of ravens, but there was no rush, no hurry. He said her name. Twice. His voice barely moving his romantic face, but it sounded as if it came from far away, with something which his old servants would have sensed rather quickly. It sounded as if something inside him matured, gave fruit, grew older. And the old fairy accent was stronger. “Isabel” he said and the room was yet again empty, just two human beings. “Don’t be afraid” and he reached out his hand. Five white, thin fingers.

◊

Isabel’s curiosity and joy at what she had just discovered returned on the moment and she came near the King of the North, happy that now she had someone to confess everything to. She felt safe, just as he suggested. After all, the man in front of her didn’t look much older than her biggest brother, who was just in his twenties.

She told him about all that happened on that adventurous day and he just looked at her with distant warmth, in the kindest way he knew. From time to time, he would look into the silver dish, from time to time he would put an invisible mark on her face with his thumb.

When she was finished, the man started telling her tales of which she had never heard. Many of them. She would remember him as a very good story-teller, even better than her mother, because she could see the room change along with his words as he spoke.

◊

Hours later, two out of three windows showed dawn. At that time, John Uskglass looked up from the water he kept touching and dividing and, holding her little warm hand in his cold one, he led her through the house, down the road and into the city.

Some recalled seeing a young man dressed in black walking along with the glovemaker’s daughter that afternoon, just like an illusion, but they soon forgot about it. However after that day, it could be seen that the girl was changed. Her imagination was wild. She would go on for hours, telling stories that she believed the trees told her and jokes she “picked up from the sky”. She would go into the deserted plains near the city and stay there.

The road didn’t open again until 1817 and then nobody came through it. John Uskglass left the great, silver dish there, in one of his many houses and nobody, maybe not even him, found out whom or what he’d been looking for at that time.

 


End file.
